REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

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M. Shortcomings in the Intelligence Community's Response

The Joint Inquiry has determined that the Intelligence Community as a whole was not on a war footing before September 11. For example, knowledge of the DCI's declaration appears to have been limited. Some senior managers at NSA and DIA were aware of the statement, but many in the FBI had not heard of it. For example, the Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division testified to the Joint Inquiry that he "was not specifically aware of that declaration of war." Senior officers in other components of the government, including the Defense Department and the U.S. military, apparently were also unaware of the declaration. When asked whether he knew that the United States had been at war with Bin Ladin, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage responded:

I was briefed in January and February [2001], leading to my hearings in March before the U.S. Senate. The term "at war" was, to my knowledge, not used. There was no question, though, that we were in a struggle with al-Qa'ida, and al-Qa'ida was the very first thing that the administration took on at the deputies level.

[The Joint Inquiry also reviewed whether the DCI's declaration of war had any real effect in the covert action area prior to September 11, 2001. Cofer Black, former CTC Chief, explained in a statement to the Joint Inquiry: "[A]fter 9/11, the gloves came off]."

[Resources dedicated to counterterrorism generally increased during the 1990s. Notwithstanding the DCI's December 1998 exhortation to spare no resources, however, counterterrorism had to compete with other intelligence priorities. Senior CIA officers pointed to, for example, a variety of regional and global issues as intelligence priorities that required resource allocations. In testimony before the Joint Inquiry, the DCI took note of those competing intelligence requirements]:

As I "declared war" against al-Qa'ida in 1998 - in the aftermath of the East Africa embassy bombings - we were in our fifth year of round-the-clock support to Operation Southern Watch in Iraq. Just three months earlier, we were embroiled in answering questions on the India and [page 244] Pakistan nuclear tests and trying to determine how we could surge more people to understanding

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and countering weapons of mass destruction proliferation. In early 1999, we surged more than 800 analysts and redirected collection assets from across the Intelligence Community to support the NATO bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

The only substantial infusion of personnel to counterterrorism occurred after September 11, 2001, when the number of CIA personnel assigned to CTC nearly doubled -- from approximately 400 to approximately 800 -- and additional contractors were hired in support of CTC. No comparable shift of resources occurred in December 1998 after the DCI's declaration of war, in December 1999 during the Millennium crisis, or in October 2000 after the attack on USS Cole.

NSA Director Hayden described a similar situation before September 11:

We, like everyone else at the table, were stretched thin in September. The war against terrorism was our number one priority. We had about five number one priorities. And we had to balance what we were doing against all of them.

General Hayden asserted that he knew what NSA had to do to target Bin Ladin effectively before September 11, but was unable to obtain Intelligence Community support and resources for that purpose:

Given all the other intelligence priorities, it would have been difficult at that time within the [Intelligence Community] or the Department of Defense to accept the kind of resource decisions that would have been necessary to make our effort against the target more robust. NSA was focused heavily on [a range of regional and global issues]. Our resources, both human and financial, were in decline. Our efforts in 2000 to churn money internally were not accepted by the Community; its reliance on [signals intelligence] had made it reluctant to give it up.

The Joint Inquiry also learned that, even after the DCI's declaration of war, there was considerable variation in the degree to which FBI- organized Joint Terrorism Task Forces prioritized and coordinated efforts targeting Bin Ladin and al-Qa'ida in the United States. While the Bureau's New York office took the lead in the vast majority of counterterrorism investigations concerning Bin Ladin, many other FBI offices around the country were unaware of the magnitude of the threat. In an interview, former National Coordinator for Counterterrorism Richard Clarke contended that FBI field [page 245] offices, except New York, were "clueless" about counterterrorism and al-Qa'ida and did not make them priorities. Former National Security Advisor Berger testified before the Joint Inquiry: "What we have learned since

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9/11 makes clear that the FBI, as an organization, was not as focused [on the counterterrorism mission]."

N. The President and Senior Policy Advisor Responsibility

The DCI's December 1998 declaration was remarkable for its foresight and aggressiveness. But it could only have effect within a limited sphere because coordinating the U.S. Government's response to the Bin Ladin threat was not the responsibility of the DCI or the Intelligence Community, but of the President and the National Security Council.

In a Joint Inquiry briefing, Mr. Clarke touched on this issue when he discussed Presidential Decision Directive 62, "Protection Against Unconventional Threat to the Homeland and Americans Overseas." That PDD was signed by President Clinton in May 1998, before the bombings of the two U.S. Embassies in Africa and before the DCI's declaration of war. According to Mr. Clarke, the PDD created a ten- program counterterrorism initiative and assigned counterterrorist responsibilities to specific agencies:

o Apprehension, extradition, rendition, and prosecution (Department of Justice);

o Disruption (CIA);

o International cooperation (State);

o Preventing terrorist acquisition of weapons of mass destruction (National Security Council);

o Consequence management (Department of Justice/Federal Emergency Management Agency);

o Transportation security (Department of Transportation);

o Protection of critical infrastructure and cybersystems (National Security Council);

o Continuity of operations (National Security Council);

o Countering the foreign terrorist threat in the United States (Department of Justice); and [page 246]

o Protection of Americans overseas (Departments of State and Defense).

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Within that effort were the seeds of an integrated, comprehensive government-wide strategy for countering the Bin Ladin threat that could have put the nation on a war footing before September 11. The initiative is perhaps the closest that President Clinton and the National Security Council came between 1998 and the Administration's departure from office in January 2001 to a coordinated response to the threat. However, the PDD does not appear to have had much impact. It is clearly not as straightforward as the DCI's declaration and, beyond Mr. Clarke's reference to it in his testimony, no other Joint Inquiry witness pointed to PDD-62 as the policy guiding the government's response to the growing al-Qa'ida threat.

Shortly after the Bush Administration took office in January 2001, the National Security Council undertook a review of existing policy for dealing with al-Qa'ida. In response to written Joint Inquiry questions, Deputy National Security Advisor Steve Hadley explained:

The Administration took the al-Qa'ida threat seriously and, from the outset, began considering a major shift in United States counterterrorism policy. From the first days of the Bush Administration through September 2001, it conducted a seniorlevel review of policy for dealing with al-Qa'ida. The goal was to move beyond the policy of containment, criminal prosecution, and limited retaliation for specific attacks, toward attempting to "roll back" al-Qa'ida. The new goal was to eliminate completely the ability of al-Qa'ida and other terrorist groups of global reach to conduct terrorist attacks against the United States. . . . Between May and the end of July 2001, four Deputies Committee meetings were held directly related to the regional issues which had to be resolved in order to adopt a more aggressive strategy for dealing with al-Qa'ida. These meetings focused on [].

This new policy might have produced a coordinated government response to the Bin Ladin threat or put the nation on more of a war footing with al-Qa'ida before September 11. However, as Mr. Hadley noted, "[t]he Administration finalized its review of policy on al- Qa'ida at an NSC Principals [page 247] Committee meeting on September 4, 2001." President Bush had not reviewed the draft policy before September 11.

In short, the DCI and other Intelligence Community officials recognized the Bin Ladin threat. Notwithstanding the DCI's declaration, President Clinton's August 1998 statements, and intelligence reports to policymakers over many years indicating that Bin Ladin was waging war

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on the United States, neither President Clinton nor President Bush nor their National Security Councils put the government or the Intelligence Community on a war footing before September 11.

O. Lack of an Integrated Response

Usama Bin Ladin's involvement in international terrorism first came to the attention of the Intelligence Community in the early 1990s. As his direct involvement in planning and directing terrorism became more evident, CTC created a unit to focus specifically on Bin Ladin and the threat he posed to U.S. interests. CTC personnel recognized as early as 1996 that Bin Ladin posed a grave danger to the United States.

Following the August 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies, the DCI placed Bin Ladin's terrorist network among the Intelligence Community's highest priorities. The DCI raised the status of the threat further still when he announced to CIA senior managers in December 1998:

We are at war [with Bin Ladin] . . . . I want no resources or people spared in this effort, either inside the CIA or the [Intelligence] Community.

These were strong words. Rather than having a galvanizing effect, however, the Joint Inquiry record reveals that the Intelligence Community continued to be fragmented without a comprehensive strategy for combating Bin Ladin. The record also shows that the DCI was either unable or unwilling to enforce consistent priorities and marshal resources across the Community.

Evidence of a fragmented Intelligence Community can be found in the limited distribution of the DCI's declaration. The Community as a whole had only a limited awareness of the statement. For [page 248] example, although some senior NSA and DIA managers were aware of it, few FBI personnel were. The Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division told the Joint Inquiry that he "was not specifically aware of that declaration of war." Equally disturbing, Joint Inquiry interviews of FBI field personnel showed that they did not know of the DCI's declaration, and some had only passing familiarity with Bin Ladin and al- Qa'ida before September 11. Senior U.S. military officers were also unaware of the DCI's declaration.

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[A former chief of the unit in the DCI's Counterterrorist Center formed to focus on Bin Ladin, put it succinctly:

In my experience between 1996 and 1999, CIA's Directorate of Operations was the only component of the Intelligence Community that could be said to have been waging the war that Bin Ladin declared against the United States in August of 1996. The rest of the CIA and the Intelligence Community looked on our efforts as eccentric and, at times, fanatic].

Additional evidence of the absence of a comprehensive counterterrorist strategy and authoritative leadership can be found in "The Plan" the DCI described in testimony before the Joint Inquiry:

In spring of 1999, we produced a new comprehensive operational plan of attack against [Bin Ladin] and al Qaeda inside and outside of Afghanistan. The strategy was previewed to senior CIA management by the end of July of 1999. By mid- September, it had been briefed to the CIA operational level personnel, to NSA, to the FBI, and other partners. The CIA began to put in place the elements of this operational strategy which structured the agency's counterterrorism activity until September 11 of 2001.

[According to documents reviewed by the Joint Inquiry, in 1999 "The Plan" consisted of a variety of CIA covert actions against Bin Ladin. Later, in 2000, "The Plan" came to include [ ]. "The Plan" focused principally on CIA covert action and technical collection aimed at capturing Bin Ladin. "The Plan" was also significant for what it did not include:

o A Community estimate of the threat Bin Ladin's network posed to the United States and to U.S. interests overseas; [page 249]

o Significant participation by elements of the Intelligence Community other than the CIA;

o Delineation of the resources required to execute the plan;

o Decisions to downgrade other Community priorities to accommodate the priorities of the plan;

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o Attention to the threat to and vulnerabilities of the U.S. homeland; and

o Discussion of FBI involvement in the plan.

The Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division testified to the Joint Inquiry that the FBI had no war plan against Bin Ladin: "Absolutely, we did not [have a plan] at that time." When asked how the FBI's counterterrorism program fit into the overall Community program, the Assistant Director replied:

I am not sure if I know the answer to that. I talked to [the DCI] briefly about this. I have talked to [the CTC Chief] before -- the answer to your question is, I don't know the answer.

The lack of involvement by agencies other than the CIA is particularly troubling, given gaps in efforts by those agencies to address the threat. For example, while the CIA devoted resources to Bin Ladin, covert action, and Afghanistan, the FBI focused on investigating funding for terrorist groups other than al-Qa'ida, even though FBI leadership recognized after the embassy bombings in August 1998 that al-Qa'ida posed an increasing threat. In some FBI field offices, there was little appreciation for Bin Ladin and al-Qa'ida, including the San Diego office where FBI agents would discover after September 11 connections between terrorist sympathizers and at least two hijackers.

Consistent with this evidence of the absence of a comprehensive strategy is a recent finding by the Inspector General for the Department of Justice that "[t]he FBI has never performed a comprehensive written assessment of the risk of the terrorist threat facing the United States": [page 250]

Such an assessment would be useful not only to define the nature, likelihood, and severity of the threat but also [to] identify intelligence gaps that need to be addressed. Moreover, . . . comprehensive threat and risk assessments would be useful in determining where to allocate attention and resources . . . on programs and initiatives to combat terrorism.

This assessment still had not been completed as recently as FBI Director Mueller's Joint Inquiry testimony on October 17, 2002. Likewise, the DCI's National Intelligence Council never produced a National Intelligence Estimate on the threat al-Qa'ida and Bin Ladin posed to the United States.

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[Absent a comprehensive strategy for combating the threat Bin Ladin posed, the DCI could not be assured that the entire Intelligence Community would focus on the "war." The record of the Joint Inquiry also establishes that the DCI was unable or unwilling to enforce priorities and marshal resources in accordance with his declaration that the Intelligence Community was "at war." Despite the DCI's declaration, the Joint Inquiry heard repeatedly about CIA intelligence priorities that competed with Bin Ladin for personnel and funds, including other high priority intelligence targets worldwide].

NSA Director Hayden described to the Joint Inquiry the situation at his agency before September 11:

We, like everyone else at the table, were stretched thin in September [2001]. The war against terrorism was our number one priority. We had about five number one priorities. And we had to balance what we were doing against all of them.

General Hayden also explained that he knew what NSA had to do to target Bin Ladin, but he had been unable to obtain sufficient Community support and resources:

Given all the other intelligence priorities, it would have been difficult at that time within the [Intelligence Community] or the Department of Defense to accept the kind of resource decisions that would have been necessary to make our effort against the target more robust. NSA was focused heavily on [a range of regional and global issues]. Our resources, both human and financial, were in decline. Our [page 251] efforts in 2000 to churn money internally were not accepted by the Community; its reliance on [signals intelligence] had made it reluctant to give it up.

The Joint Inquiry record establishes that, even within the CIA, the DCI did not enforce priorities or marshal resources effectively against the al-Qa'ida threat. Despite the DCI's declaration of war against Bin Ladin, there is substantial evidence that the CIA's Counterterrorist Center had insufficient personnel before September 11, which had a substantial impact on its ability to detect and monitor al-Qa'ida. For example, a former CTC Chief testified before the Joint Inquiry that he did not have the resources to counter the threat Bin Ladin posed:

The three concepts I would like to leave you with are people, the finances, and operational approvals or political authorities. We didn't have enough of any of these before 9/11.

When asked why personnel were not marshaled to CTC to fight Bin Ladin's network, the former Chief recalled the CIA's Deputy Director of Operations explaining that there were not enough

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personnel to go around and that CTC was already well supplied with staff compared to other CIA divisions.

A former Chief of the CTC unit dedicated to Bin Ladin also told us, in a judgment confirmed by his successor:

We never had enough officers from the Directorate of Operations. The officers we had were greatly overworked. . . . We also received marginal analytic support from the Directorate of Intelligence. . . .

In particular, a CIA officer commented on the reasons for the CIA's failure to follow through on information about two September 11 hijackers who came to the attention of the Intelligence Community in January 2000:

How could these misses have occurred?… The CIA operators focused on the Malaysia meeting [the hijackers attended]; when it was over, they focused on other, more urgent operations against threats real or assessed. Of the many people involved, no one detected that the data generated by this operation crossed a reporting threshold, or, if they did, they assumed that the reporting requirement had been met elsewhere. . . . They are the kinds of misses that happen when people - even very competent, dedicated people such as the [page 252] CIA officers and FBI agents and analysts involved in all aspects of this story - are simply overwhelmed.

On September 12, 2002, there was a substantial infusion of personnel into the CTC. No comparable shift of resources occurred in December 1998 after the DCI's declaration of war, in December 1999 during the Millennium crisis, or in October 2000 after the attack on USS Cole. In testimony before the Joint Inquiry, DCI George Tenet asserted, "In hindsight, I wish I had said, 'Let's take the whole enterprise down,' and put 500 more people there sooner." It is noteworthy that the DCI's comments were limited to the CIA and did not encompass the resources of other agencies within the Intelligence Community.

In response to questions about efforts to obtain additional counterterrorism resources, DCI Tenet described to the Joint Inquiry his inability, before September 11, to generate necessary support within the Executive Branch:

[I would ask every] year in [the] budget submission . . . I'm not talking about the Committee. I'm talking about the front end at OMB and the hurdle you have to get through to fully fund what we thought we needed to do the job. Senator Kyl once asked me "How much money are you short?" "I'm short $900 million to $1 billion every year for the next five years" is what I answered. And we told that to

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everybody downtown for as long as anybody would listen and never got to first base. So you get what you pay for in terms of our ability to be as big and robust as people - and when I became Director, we had [ ] case officers around the world. Now we're up to about [ ] and the President's given us the ability to grow that by another [ ]. And everybody wonders why you can't do all the things people say you need to do. Well, if you don't pay at the front end, it ain't going to be there at the back end.

The inability to realign Intelligence Community resources to combat the threat Bin Ladin posed is in part a direct consequence of the limited authority the DCI enjoys over major portions of the Intelligence Community. As former Senator Warren Rudman noted in testimony before the Joint Inquiry: "[E]ighty-five percent of [the Intelligence Community's budget] is controlled by the Department of Defense."

[Page 253]

While the DCI has statutory responsibility spanning the Intelligence Community, his actual authority is limited to budgets and personnel over which he exercises direct control: the CIA, the Office of the DCI, and the Community Management Staff. As former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Lee Hamilton told the Joint Inquiry:

Currently, the Director of Central Intelligence, the leading intelligence figure . . . control[s] but a small portion of his budget. The DCI has, as I understand it, enhanced authority after 1997, and that permits him to consolidate the national intelligence budget, to make some trade-offs, but given the overwhelming weight of the Defense Department in the process, that is of limited value. . . . [T]he thing that puzzles me here is why we reject for the Intelligence Community the model of organization that we follow in every other enterprise in this country. We have someone at the head who has responsibility and accountability. We accept that. But for some reason, we reject it when it comes to the Intelligence Community.

In sum, the Joint Inquiry found leadership and structural failings in the Intelligence Community's response to the Bin Ladin threat. Proposals to restructure the Community are examined in another section of this report.

P. The Intelligence Community's Failure to Establish a Coordinated Domestic Focus Before September 11, 2001

Throughout the 1990s, the desire and capacity of international terrorist groups, particularly Islamic radicals, to strike the United States at home increased dramatically. Several terrorist attacks and disrupted plots in the 1990s underscored the reality of this danger.

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Recognizing the threat, the Intelligence Community warned regularly and repeatedly that al- Qa'ida and affiliated radicals sought to kill Americans on U.S. soil.

The FBI increased its focus on terrorism in the 1990s, but critics charge that it neither focused sufficiently on radical Islamist activities in the United States nor properly aligned itself to counter the growing danger of terrorism domestically. As a result, the critics say, radical Islamists were able to exploit our freedoms and operate undetected within the United States. Several senior FBI officials, [page 254] however, contend that countering terrorism at home was a top priority and that Islamic radicals simply did not present opportunities for the FBI to disrupt their activities.

[Other Intelligence Community members made only limited contributions to preventing attacks at home and refrained from activities that could be construed as monitoring American citizens. The CIA provided general assessments, noting the risk to the United States. NSA offered some leads related to possible radical activity in the United States, but chose not to intercept communications between individuals in the United States and foreign countries. In general, the Community as a whole did not come together to close gaps in coverage of international terrorist activity in the United States].

As is explained in other sections of this report, in the 1990s, it became clear that al- Qa'ida was a deadly adversary operating in America and able to levy attacks on U.S. soil. The relative immunity from international terrorism that America had enjoyed for many years was gone. Al-Qa'ida was also unusual in its dedication, size, organizational structure, and mission. As former CTC Chief Cofer Black testified, al-Qa'ida became more skilled and attracted more adherents throughout the 1990s, becoming in essence a small army by the end of the decade.

The Intelligence Community repeatedly warned that al-Qa'ida had both the capability and the intention to threaten the lives of thousands of Americans and that it wanted to strike within the United States. This information was conveyed in intelligence reports, broader intelligence assessments, counterterrorism policy documents, and classified Congressional testimony. Policymakers from the Clinton and Bush administrations have testified that the Intelligence Community repeatedly warned them of the danger al-Qa'ida posed and the urgency of the threat.

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Q. Steps Taken to Fight International Terrorism at Home

The FBI increased its focus on terrorism throughout the 1990s and helped prevent several major attacks that would have killed many innocent people. According to Director Mueller, these schemes included a 1993 plot to attack New York City landmarks; a 1995 plot to bomb U.S. commercial aircraft; [page 255] a 1997 plot to place pipe bombs in New York City subways; and a plot to bomb the Los Angeles airport in December 1999.

The FBI took several important measures to improve its ability to fight international terrorism in the United States. Former Director Freeh testified that, during the 1990s, the FBI more than doubled the number of personnel working counterterrorism, and its counterterrorism budget more than tripled. In 1998, former Assistant Director for Counterterrorism Dale Watson and other FBI leaders recognized that the Bureau was reacting to terrorist attacks rather than preventing them. They initiated the "MAXCAP05" program to improve the FBI's ability to counter terrorism. In 1999, the FBI made counterterrorism a separate Headquarters division, elevating its importance within the Bureau, and created a separate operational unit focused on Bin Ladin.

Several current and past senior FBI officials have also testified about Bureau initiated personnel exchanges with the CIA and the expansion of its Legal Attaché program (stationing FBI representatives in U.S. Embassies), both of which deepened the FBI's ability to link domestic and international threats. Finally, former Director Freeh has testified that Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) were given increasing prominence throughout the 1990s. The JTTF model, originally created to improve coordination between the FBI and the New York City Police Department, was expanded to other cities after the first World Trade Center attack. Over time, the number of JTTFs increased, improving coordination with state and local officials and even other elements of the Intelligence Community, as CIA officers joined several task forces.

R. Lack of Focus on the Domestic Threat

In spite of these steps, several critics contend that the Intelligence Community did not pay sufficient attention to the risk of an attack at home, and that, as a result, the United States became a sanctuary for radical terrorists:

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o Former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft testified that as a result of American freedoms and civil liberties, "the safest place in the world for a terrorist [page 256] to be is inside the United States. . . . As long as [terrorists] don't do something that trips them up against our laws, they can do pretty much all they want."

o Richard Clarke, former NSC Special Coordinator for Counterterrorism, contends that, with the exception of the New York office, FBI field offices around the country were "clueless" about counterterrorism and al-Qa'ida and did not make these targets priorities. Former National Security Advisor Berger testified that the FBI was not sufficiently focused on counterterrorism before September 11.

o As the Joint Inquiry record confirms, FBI officials working on terrorism faced competing priorities and the ranks of those focusing on al-Qa'ida were not sufficiently augmented. Only one FBI strategic analyst focused exclusively on al- Qa'ida before September 11. The former Chief of the FBI's International Terrorism Section stated that he had more than one hundred fewer Special Agents working on international terrorism on September 11 than he did in August 1998.

o Interviews of FBI New York field office and FBI Headquarters personnel suggest that the New York Field Office, the office of origin for all major Bin Ladin related investigations, focused primarily on investigating overseas attacks.

o The terrorist threat was viewed through a narrow lens because of the FBI's casebased approach. Interviews of FBI personnel show that analysts were sent to operational units to assist in case work rather than assess data gathered by the various field offices.

o According to FBI agents, FBI counterterrorism training was extremely limited before September 11.

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o Former U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White testified that the FBI often lacked linguists competent in the languages and dialects spoken by radicals linked to al-Qa'ida. [Page 257]

o An FBI agent with considerable counterterrorism experience noted that foreign governments often knew more about radical Islamist activity in the United States than did the U.S. Government because they saw this activity as a threat to their own existence.

As is discussed in other sections of this report, the Joint Inquiry record confirms that the FBI's decentralized structure and inadequate information technology made the Bureau unable to correlate the knowledge possessed by its components. The FBI did not gather intelligence from all its many cases nation-wide to produce an overall assessment of al-Qa'ida's presence in the United States. The Joint Inquiry has also found that many FBI field offices had not made counterterrorism a top priority and they knew little about al-Qa'ida before September 11.

The FBI also did not inform policymakers of the extent of terrorist activity in the United States, although former Director Freeh stated that he met regularly with senior U.S. Government officials to discuss counterterrorism. Former National Security Advisor Berger has testified that the FBI assured him that there was little radical activity in the United States and that this activity was "covered." Although the FBI conducted many investigations, these pieces were not fitted into a larger picture.

FBI officials argue that al-Qa'ida and its sympathizers proved a difficult target in the United States. Director Mueller contends that the hijackers did little to arouse suspicion in the United States, staying away from known terrorist sympathizers:

They gave no hint to those around what they were about. They came lawfully. They lived lawfully. They trained lawfully.

This judgment is corroborated by several senior FBI investigators who point out that, although "international radical fundamentalists" operate in the United States, "real al-Qa'ida members," those involved in planning or carrying out attacks, avoid other radicals and radical mosques as part of their tradecraft. As is discussed elsewhere in this report, that judgement is open to some question, based on what is now known about the activities of the hijackers in the United States.

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[Page 258]

Former FBI Director Freeh also noted in an interview that al-Qa'ida operations were small and were not connected to real "cells," and the former Assistant Director for the FBI's Counterterrorism Division contended that many of the "red flags" now apparent are visible only in hindsight. Other FBI officials noted in testimony that U.S. protection of civil liberties precluded the use of intrusive investigative techniques, and Mr. Freeh criticized the idea of using the FBI preventively by being much more aggressive as a potential risk to a democratic and open society.

Finally, FBI officials contend that resources were limited, while requirements kept increasing. Former Director Freeh and the Assistant Director for the Counterterrorism Division testified that the FBI provided security against terrorism at trials, at special events such as the Olympics, and for meetings of world leaders, all of which demanded considerable resources. In addition, cyber threats and weapons of mass destruction demanded FBI attention. Mr. Freeh testified that, by the end of the decade, "the allocations were insufficient to maintain the critical growth and priority of the FBI's counterterrorism program."

The Joint Inquiry received mixed reports regarding the FBI's aggressiveness in penetrating radical Islamic groups in the United States. Former U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White testified that FBI sources proved invaluable in the successful prevention of the 1993 attack on New York landmarks and the prosecution of the first World Trade Center attack that same year. In addition, the FBI had numerous wiretaps and several human informants in its effort to target various radical Islamist organizations.

However, an FBI official involved in the investigations of the first World Trade Center attack and other terrorist plots argued that the FBI made it exceptionally difficult to handle sources and that this difficulty increased in the 1990s. The agent contended that the FBI did not want to be associated with persons engaged in questionable activities, even though they can provide useful information. In addition, he asserted that agent performance ratings downgraded the importance of developing informants. Director Mueller, however, testified that many constraints and restrictions had decreased since the 1970s, enabling FBI agents to recruit sources with few impediments.

[Page 259]

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S. Limited Counterterrorism Contributions by other Intelligence Community Members

The criticisms regarding the FBI's limited attention to the danger at home reflects a large gap in the nation's counterterrorism structure, a failure to focus on how an international terrorist group might target the United States itself. No agency appears to have been responsible for regularly assessing the threat to the homeland. In his testimony before the Joint Inquiry, Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz asserted that an attack on the United States fell between the cracks in the U.S. Intelligence Community's division of labor. He noted that there is "a problem of where responsibility is assigned."

The CIA and NSA followed events overseas, and their employees saw their job as passing relevant threat information to the FBI. Both the CIA and NSA are leery of activity that suggests they are monitoring U.S. citizens or conducting assessments linked to the activities of persons in the United States, a task that officials interviewed at these agencies believed belongs exclusively to the FBI. The FBI, on the other hand, does not have the analytic capacity to prepare assessments of U.S. vulnerability and relies heavily on the CIA for much of its analysis.

At times, the CIA ignored threat activity linked to the United States, focusing instead on radical activity overseas. For instance, one CIA officer told the Joint Inquiry in an interview that the travel of two hijackers to Los Angeles was not important and that he was interested only in their connection to Yemen.

[A particular failure by NSA and the FBI to coordinate the interception of communications by al- a'ida operatives before September 11 illustrates the gaps between programs implemented by the members of the Intelligence Community. Both the FBI and NSA had programs in place to collect al-Qa'ida communications. [ ]. The FBI had not identified a significant number of al-Qa'ida cells in the United States and, thus, had fewer opportunities to use electronic surveillance against these targets].

[While each agency pursued its own collection strategy, neither exerted any effort to develop a coordinated plan to intercept international communications, particularly those between the United [page 260] States and foreign countries. We now know that several hijackers communicated extensively abroad after arriving in the United States and that at least two entered,

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left, and returned to this country. Effective coordination among the Intelligence Community agencies could have provided potentially important information about hijacker activities and associations before September 11].

[NSA analyzed several communications from early 2000 involving hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar, and a suspected terrorist facility in the Middle East that was associated with al- Qa'ida's activities directed against United States' interests. [ ]. The Intelligence Community did not determine until after September 11, 2001 that these contacts occurred while al-Mihdhar was in the United States. [ ]. Knowledge of al-Mihdhar's presence in the United States could have proven crucial to launching an investigation that might have revealed information about him and his roommate, hijacker Nawaf al-Hazmi, who came into contact with Hani Hanjour and other hijackers at various times in 2001].

[Better coordination between NSA and the FBI might have: improved prospects for determining that al-Mihdhar was in this country in early 2000; led to the collection of information concerning international communications by other hijackers; identified radical suspects; and created leads for the FBI. Both NSA and FBI are authorized to access international communications between the United States and foreign countries. [ ].

[Both agencies had independently learned of the suspected terrorist facility in the Middle East and knew that it was linked to al-Qa'ida activities directed against United States' interests. The FBI informed NSA when it learned of the suspected terrorist facility in August 1998. [Page 261] NSA disseminated several reports of communications involving the suspected terrorist facility in the Middle East to the FBI, including reports relating to [ ]. However, NSA and the FBI did not fully coordinate their efforts, and, as a result, the opportunity to determine al-Mihdhar's presence in the United States was lost].

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[]. [NSA Director Hayden testified before the Joint Inquiry that the collection of communications between the United States and foreign countries will most likely contain information about [ ] domestic activities and, thus, [ ] is the responsibility of the FBI, not NSA. General Hayden contrasted the foreign intelligence value of such intercepts and their domestic security value. If the former is at stake, he asserted, NSA should intercept the communications; if the latter, the FBI].

General Hayden, senior NSA managers, NSA legal staff, and NSA analysts made clear in Joint Inquiry testimony and interviews that they do not want to be perceived as focusing NSA capabilities against "U.S. persons" in the United States. The Director and his staff were unanimous that lessons NSA learned as a result of Congressional investigations during the 1970s should not be forgotten.

[Whatever the merits of this position, it was incumbent on NSA and the FBI to coordinate so that the full range of intelligence collection weapons in the arsenal of the Intelligence Community could have been deployed against the terrorist threat. NSA routinely gave the FBI intelligence reporting, and that reporting contained leads about foreign terrorist-related communications. In addition, NSA responded to requests from the FBI for such information [ ]. The FBI used NSA-supplied information to advance its investigative interests. However, there was no inter-agency procedure in effect to ensure that the FBI made an informed decision to cover communications that NSA was not covering [].

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